Santa Anita winner with Spring Meet

All the challenges of extending the season from mid-April to late June were met, including overlapping non-racing events such as 10,000 attendees of the Arcadia High School gradutation ceremony on a race day earlier this month, and thousands of attendees of Saturday’s opening night of the summer season of the California Philharmonic while race fans were still filing out of the track — and Santa Anita Park’s first-ever 38-day Spring Meeting concluded Sunday with both attendance and handle numbers far exceeding initial projections.

Opening night of Cal Phil Saturday, June 28, 2014

The Spring Meet, which was effectively combined with the track’s 69-day Winter Meet that ran from Dec. 26 through April 20, generated total pari-mutuel handle that exceeded $1 billion. With superstar California Chrome leading the way through the Triple Crown (the first time Santa Anita has featured live racing on Triple Crown racing dates), Santa Anita posted huge year-to-year gains on and off track on Kentucky Derby Day (May 3), Preakness Day (May 17), and Belmont Day (June 7). And Saturday’s (June 28) initial Gold Cup at Santa Anita Park generated large increases in attendance and on-track handle.

“This has been a very successful and gratifying meet on several levels,” said Santa Anita Chairman Keith Brackpool. “This was uncharted territory for us and on balance we’re very pleased with the way the meet went in terms of handle and purses, and that we were able to expose many more thousands of new fans to our sport. “One of our primary objectives has been to get people excited about coming out to Santa Anita and our modernization projects throughout the facility have been a great help in that regard. The successes of this meet though would not have been possible without the support from our fans, owners, trainers, jockeys and dedicated employees, and for that we are deeply appreciative. We look forward to seeing everyone again when our Autumn Meet commences in September.”

Santa Anita’s 2014 Autumn Meet will open on Friday, Sept. 26 and it will be highlighted by the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, which will be hosted by Santa Anita for an unprecedented third consecutive year on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1.

Meanwhile, the Cal Phil concert kicked off with another delighful opening night of fantastic weather and terrific music and fabulous chorale led by conductor Victor Vener. The evening of mostly movie themes composed by John Wiliams featured a powerful reading of “Dry Your Tears – Afrika” in both the original Mende and English by Sierra Leone Princess Sarah Culberson as an introduction to the theme from “Amistad.”

— By Scott Hettrick